The Subject Japan: Writing Time Ten Minutes

I found the aerial photo on this post of a Tokyo district at this website. If you are interested there are other interesting photos like this one; and writing on the topic of condensed populations (more or less).

Photo by Yann Arthus-Betrand

Japan Ten Minutes free write:

The heat played a game with everyone. The game was how long could a person go before they snapped. It was impetuous, the heat, standing in crowds and lines. At times you could see its presence leaning on the shoulder of a man or woman or poking at the belly of a screaming baby. There was a record heat wave in Tokyo. It had lasted for two weeks with no breaks in the evening and no breezes. The city already packed and stifling had come to a standstill. The calm and quiet Japanese citizens were breaking down, fights had erupted on the trains and subways, anger was brimming on each brow. Like every crazy heat wave seems to call forth, it had awakened a beast. Not just the anger in the people but a real monster inside a man or a woman- something that had been sleeping was prowling. Tokyo had a serial killer.

The killer struck on the fifth day of the heat wave. An old man was found suffocated with a plastic bag and a pair of men’s underwear. The city did not panic, as there could have been any motivation, any number of crazies in the street. It had to be an isolated event connected to the old dead man. People slept with their windows open praying for a cool breeze, some coolness to ease the suffering heat. The sixth night the killer attacked this time killing three people. An old woman found in her home and a young couple found in a park. all three had been suffocated with a bag and a pairs of men’s underwear. Tokyo knew she had a killer.

Should we close the windows? They asked themselves. It is only killing old people.

No remember the young couple in the park?

They must have interrupted the killer in his get away, they stumbled across him that is why they were killed.

The elderly closed their windows and suffered. The young people kept the windows open and prayed again for a small breeze. The seventh night, there were more deaths, but this time from the heat, many of the elderly exhausted and strained had suffocated in the oppressive heat. The thick air had smothered them and many were ill and had been taken into the hospitals, a few had died, and in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo a Japanese woman screamed hysterically at the discovery of her two dead children, both suffocated with plastic bags and men’s underwear. A third had been spared by a small tear in the bag allowing just enough to breath. (There was a moment in the night when Mrs. Shizu had awakened to calm the baby who had woke, it was then that the killer did not finish its job. It knew the bag had a tear and it would have to rely on the fates to take the boy but the killer had more work and could not be caught just yet.)

It kills children!- Tokyo screamed and the sounds of shutters and windows closing fluttered through the city like the giant Mothra.